The Polaroid
by planet p
Summary: What if they had met before?


**The Polaroid** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** For those of you who were wondering about the last line in _Brilliant_, this is what it's related to – I hope it helps.

You can also find this in _Once more, for science_ (Chapter 19), by which reasoning I realise this is a little bit naughty – you're only supposed to have one copy of any one story on this site – but you were wondering, right? And it saves you the effort of having to read through all of OMFS to find it. Please, please don't tell on me.

Basically, it's about the first time Miss Parker and Lyle met. And, yeah, it's made up.

* * *

_1977_

Parker ran to catch the boy up. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

The boy ignored her.

"You can't take that thing!" she told him sternly.

"Why?" he said.

"It's not yours!"

"It's not yours either."

Parker growled, hating her stupid little sailor uniform. "Put it back," she urged. She was sure to be dead if her boss found out.

"How would you like to be kept in a glass thingy?"

Parker planted her hands on her hips. "People pay a lot of money to eat that! Are you going to pay for it?"

The boy pelted.

"Come back here right now!" Parker yelled. She took chase.

The boy had stopped by the boardwalk. Parker gasped, coming up beside him. He bit his lip. "That was an accident," he said.

"Get it back out!" Parker shouted, fed up, and pushed him forward. A perfectly good lobster!

She was dead, no – beyond dead – she was fired.

"You idiot!" she said, because apparently no one had taught him to swim and he was really freaking out. She knelt down on the boardwalk, her knees hurting already. "Stop freaking out and give me your hands! HANDS!" she shouted.

* * *

Parker stood with her arms crossed. "What is your problem?" she finally said.

"You said they were going to eat her. I couldn't let them eat my grandmother."

Parker stopped breathing. Seriously, he didn't just say-? She burst into laughter.

"It's not funny," he said.

Parker couldn't stop laughing. He was wrong, because it was funny.

The boy stomped off, dripping wet.

"Hey!" Parker caught him up. "You're wet. You can't go in there." She took his arm, on sudden inspiration.

From here they could see into the restaurant.

She winced. "Oh shit, there goes gramps." She shrugged. "We could say a prayer," she suggested.

The boy glared at her.

She tugged on his arm. "It doesn't hurt," she said.

She showed him into the kitchen the back way, back door.

She waved. "Bye-bye, gramps."

Plomp, into the pot the lobster went.

"Oi!" She grabbed the boy and held him fast. He wasn't going anywhere. "Gramps is gone."

She watched the pot briefly.

"Eww," she said, and stepped back from the wet boy. Perfect, she thought. She stomped off through the kitchen. She needed to find a sweater.

When she returned from her locker she found the boy by the window. Inside! She hurried over, shushing him toward the door.

"Out!"

* * *

"You need he-" she was saying as she escorted him to the parking lot via the boardwalk. She screamed and jumped back from him. "Eww! That is too gross!" Actually, she was starting to feel sick. "Just so you know," she said, "that one wasn't for eating. It was for decoration."

The boy shrugged, dropped the fish into the water.

Officially, she was never putting a live fish in her mouth.

He sat down by the edge of the boardwalk and kicked his legs above the water.

"You're mad! You know that right?" she said, smoothing the back of her skirt with her hands. She sat down beside him.

"We can't go home," he finally said, watching all of that water. "It's funny because you have it to," he looked across at her briefly. "War."

Parker made a face. "Mad!" she muttered.

"We had to assimilate when we came to earth. Grandmother wasn't with me. The ship she was on crashed into the sea. No humans to assimilate out there. We couldn't survive for very long in our original forms, that was why it was imperative we assimilated."

Parker frowned incredulously. "Then why'd you let her go if she's your grandma?"

"We can't change her back. We don't even know if she knows what or who she was. She'll be happier out there."

"So what are you, like," she said, "an alien?" She got to her feet. Shook her head. If he had been attempting to chat her up, it wasn't working, she thought. "I don't date non-humans," she said. She strode off back toward the restaurant.

He ran and got in her way. "I do have something to buy," he said.

Parker placed her hands on her hips. "Yeah," she said, "and what's that, lobster boy?"

He dug some coins out of his pocket and handed them over. "It says so right there, see," he said, nodding to a board mounted to the wall outside.

PHOTGRAPHS TAKEN, it read. WHISKERS BLAKE – FRESH SEAFOOD – FAMILY RESTAURANT. DON'T JUST TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT US – HAVE YOUR PHOTGRAPH TAKEN WITH ONE OF OUR FRIENDLY STAFF!

Parker moaned. She hated her job! She fixed a false smile to her face. "So it does," she said with a sneer. "One moment please," she said. Arriving at the counter, she mimicked sticking her finger down her throat as if to say: Yuck! She quickly handed the coins to her co-worker. "Can you take a picture?" she asked the older girl. "I really need to get rid of this guy. I think he might be a lunatic."

The girl nodded.


End file.
